I originally wrote this post about a week ago, on a morning when fog was blanketing the area and there was still about six inches of snow on the ground from a storm the previous weekend.
I sit in my sunroom that's also my home office and gaze out the windows at the morning fog. It settles in a haze above the snow, surrounding the trees in the park across the street, creating an ambiance that feels both slightly eery but also peaceful. There's an emptiness to it, but not in the hollow sort of way. Not in the way I've been feeling lately. The emptiness of the fog-laden world outside gives the impression of being expansive, the openness it creates feels peaceful, inviting, a space of possibility. A place where if you pause quietly and listen, instead of feeling lost, you feel connected.
Lately, I've been feeling isolated. Physically (pandemic plus winter), socially, emotionally. In this isolation, the quiet - from lack of activity, lack of connection with others, lack of feeling a purpose- has felt incredibly loud. It's had me feeling lost in the world, in my relationships with others, with myself. This morning, though, something feels as if it has shifted internally. As I peer outside at the white and gray tones of my snow and fog covered neighborhood, the stillness, the quiet, feels like an opportunity, purposeful somehow.
I'd recently noticed that I have been fighting against the quiet, the stillness. For the past few weeks (and really, probably much longer), I've been telling myself a lot of stories. I've been telling myself that if I post more on social media, if I try to interact more with people online, I'll feel less alone. I tell myself that if I can find more activities and actions to fill my time, I'll feel more fulfilled because I won't be bored, because I won't feel like "I have nothing to do" or "I have no purpose". I've been once again feeling this urgent need to figure out exactly what I'm going to do with my life right now, and telling myself that if I figure this out, I'll feel happier. To be clear, I wasn't doing all of this consciously, at least not fully. Yes, I knew I was posting or interacting with people - I wasn't sleep-scrolling. But it wasn't an intentional, thought out decision. I was grasping and clinging and trying to control a lot of things that I have no way of controlling, because they are outside of me. In short, I was doing the exact opposite of the theme word and supporting words I've chosen for this year - Nurture. Nourish. Release.
Toward the end of last week, I decided to take a social media break (I did check LinkedIn, but I don't really count that). It wasn't sparked by a specific incident. I simply felt that I was putting way too much stake in the curated lives of others, in who and how many people reacted or replied to a post - many (most, in fact) of whom I would likely never hear from again if somehow social media ceased to exist. In trying to "connect" more, I was feeling increasingly lonely. I was allowing it to affect my self-worth and my connection with myself. My brain also felt overloaded with stimulus, most of it not even information I particularly cared about, but it was right there in front of me, and I'd get sucked in. It was taking up valuable brain space, which is especially tricky for someone like me, whose cyclothymic and anxious brain easily jumps all over the place without the added stimulus of alerts and notifications and constant media. Likewise, I noticed that the more I railed against having unused time/less to do, the harder I tried to wrack my brain for "what am I doing with my life", the more intensely disconnected I felt from myself, from any sense of purpose.
This morning, it occurred to me that maybe this stillness, this quiet is exactly what I need right now. I have noticed that since being off social media, I'm feeling more creative. Over the past few days, I've had several ideas pop into my head and have grabbed pen and paper to jot them down (I'm still old school when it comes to any writing that's not blogging). It feels like being online less, and having fewer pop up alerts and notifications and stimulus, have I've found myself drawn back to some of the yogic concepts (not physical poses, but other aspects of the practice) that we studied in Yoga Teacher Training, but that I haven't explored as much since. I'm finding that as I'm pushing myself less to "figure it all out right now", I'm feeling less antsy, more open to letting ideas come in and percolate a bit, enjoying the fact that I get these thoughts swirling in, instead of trying to force them to create something more concrete right this moment.
Of course, realizing what I am feeling doesn't mean that I stop feeling it. Being able to say "ah, what I'm feeling is loneliness" doesn't mean I feel less lonely, just like how I frequently recognize when I'm feeling anxious, depressed, or hypomanic, yet knowing this doesn't make these feelings go away. I can't simply change my thinking to "I will not feel lonely/depressed/anxious/etc", that's not how the brain, and particularly the brain with mental illness, works. But recognizing what I'm feeling, and having an idea of why I'm feeling it, can help me to process it and, in some cases, take actions to help. Seeing where I'm pushing and grasping and clinging, where I'm fighting against what I'm feeling and it's doing more harm than good, can help me to make shifts, even if subtle and even if temporary (i.e. I'll likely go back on social media at some point, even if it's just to do things like share these blog posts).
So this morning, I'm welcoming the stillness, the space. In gazing out my windows at the fog-filled, snowy park across the street, I'm able to see how quiet emptiness can be a place for opportunity, openness, exploration. How it can be expansive instead of hollow and encapsulating. And while I know that an empty park filled with snow isn't going to erase my need for connection to other humans, or make certain aspects of my life, like going through IVF treatment during a pandemic, feel less lonely or isolating. But it reminds my of why the vision board I created at the start of 2022 contains clippings of the phrases "Nature's Sanctuary", "Practice in Solitude", "More Presence", and "Truly Live Yoga". There is beauty to be found in the stillness, in the quiet, in the foggy space between where you are now and knowing exactly where you want to be.
